Forthwrite Festival: a celebration of women writers over 50
Brighton: Saturday, 15 March 2025
Crawley: Sunday, 30 March 2025
Bringing you the first ever Forthwrite Festival! A celebration of women writers over 50. With rousing talks from best-selling authors Annie Garthwaite and Kit De Waal, the festival takes place over two days, in Brighton on Saturday 15 March and Crawley on Sunday 30 March. Expect inspiring workshops and lively discussions with authors and industry professionals. The festival is for readers, writers and those interested in creativity and expression. Explore the full programme.
The festival is hosted by Forthwrite in partnership with New Writing South and is supported by Arts Council England.
Introducing the writers (and agents) we are celebrating:
Brighton: Saturday 15 March
Shona Abhyankar
Shona Abhyankar is an award-winning publicist and is currently Publicity Director at Penguin Random House UK. She has been in the book/publishing industry for almost 30 years. Shona has worked as a literary agent in London and Sydney and as a book publicist both in-house for large and small publishers , agency and freelance. Shona is former mentor for the Publishers Publicity Circle and a co-founder of the Primadonna Festival.
Taking Up Space panelist
Yvonne Bailey-Smith
Yvonne Bailey-Smith was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the UK in 1969 as a teenager. She trained and worked as a social worker before becoming a psychotherapist. Her debut novel, The Day I Fell Off My Island (Myriad Editions), was shortlisted for four awards: the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2022, the Diverse Book Awards 2022, the Paul Torday Memorial Prize 2022, and the RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2022. She is a supporter of Water Aid.
Debut Over 50 panelist
Hannah Berry
Hannah Berry is an award-winning comics creator, scriptwriter and campaigner, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and UK Comics Laureate 2019-21. Berry is the author of three critically acclaimed graphic novels published by Jonathan Cape. She is Co-Founder/Director of the Comics Cultural Impact Collective CIC, raising awareness of the cultural impact of comics and making the case for better funding, support and recognition. Berry is half Ecuadorian and lives in Brighton.
Co-facilitator: Intro to Graphic Novels: Show and Tell, Then Make
Anna Davidson
Anna Davidson has worked in book publishing for three decades as a writer, editor and managing editor, at Faber, DK and elsewhere. She has written non-fiction for DK and Wayland, and last year published her debut poetry collection, Poetry for Life and Other Chronic Conditions: short poems from Long Covid. Anna is currently working on a new collection and a novel. Find out more via her website: www.therightword.co.uk.
Co-facilitator: Taking Control of Your Writing Life, This Is Your Time
Sharon Duggal
Sharon Duggal’s second novel, Should We Fall Behind (2020, Bluemoose Books) was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s 2021 Encore Award and selected for Between the Covers, the BBC’s flagship book show. Her debut, The Handsworth Times was The Morning Star’s Fiction Book of the Year 2016 and selected as the Brighton City Reads Big Read in 2017. Her short fiction appears in numerous anthologies. Sharon has recently completed her third novel and is planning her fourth. She has an MPhil in Creative Writing (University of Sussex) and regularly teaches workshops and courses. She is a current Royal Literary Fund (RLF) Fellow at the University of Brighton.
Facilitator: WRITING PEOPLE: Developing Characters for Fiction
Yvette Edwards
Yvvette Edwards is a British East Londoner of Montserratian origin and author of two novels, A Cupboard Full of Coats and The Mother. Several of her short stories have been broadcast on radio and published in anthologies, including New Daughters of Africa. Her work has been nominated for a number of literary awards including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Booker Prize. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Taking Up Space panelist
Annie Garthwaite
Annie Garthwaite grew up in a working-class community in the northeast of England and studied English at the University of Wales before a thirty-year international business career. In 2017 she studied for an MA in Creative Writing at Warwick University and, while studying, wrote her debut novel Cecily, published by Penguin in 2021. Cecily was named a ‘top pick’ by The Times, and a ‘Best Book of 2021’ by independent bookshops and Waterstones. Annie’s second novel, The King’s Mother, was published by Penguin in July 2024 and named ‘Book of the Month’ by The Times.
Keynote Speaker and Debut Over 50 panelist
Read what Annie had to say about her writing journey.
Anna Hayward
Anna Hayward is Chair of Trustees of New Writing South, and her recently published novel, Broken Madonna (under the pen name Anna Lucia) is an Amazon Bestseller. She started writing novels in her late forties, and her own writing story is one of persistence, reframing and learning to sharpen her words and getting to know the industry. For more about Anna as an author, writing mentor and editor: www.annalucia.co.uk.
Co-facilitator: Taking Control of Your Writing Life, This Is Your Time
Katy Massey
Katy Massey is a writer, teacher and editor. Her Jhalak Prize shortlisted memoir ‘Are We Home Yet?’ was published in 2020, and her debut novel, ‘All Us Sinners’, in 2024. A second novel in the series is due in 2025. She has been widely published in magazines and anthologies, including Common People, an anthology of working-class memoir, edited by Kit De Waal. Katy was a journalist for many years. After studying for a PhD in autobiography, she produced Arts Council-funded initiatives designed to give a voice to people whose lives are routinely side-lined. These projects have published over fifty first time authors.
Debut Over 50 panelist
Corinne Pearlman
Corinne Pearlman is director of the First Graphic Novel Award, since its founding by Brighton-based Myriad Editions in 2012. She represents the authors Kate Charlesworth, Graham Johnstone and Myfanwy Tristram at Pearlman & Lacey. An experienced editor, designer and production manager, she accompanies graphic novelists through all the stages of creating, editing, designing and production for print.
Co-facilitator: Intro to Graphic Novels: Show and Tell, Then Make
Corinne Pearlman
Corinne Pearlman is director of the First Graphic Novel Award, since its founding by Brighton-based Myriad Editions in 2012. She represents the authors Kate Charlesworth, Graham Johnstone and Myfanwy Tristram at Pearlman & Lacey. An experienced editor, designer and production manager, she accompanies graphic novelists through all the stages of creating, editing, designing and production for print.
Co-facilitator: Intro to Graphic Novels: Show and Tell, Then Make
Reshma Ruia
Reshma Ruia is a Manchester-based writer. She has written two novels, Something Black in the Lentil Soup, and Still Lives, winner of the 2023 Diverse Book Readers’ Choice Award and longlisted for the 2023 Peoples Book Award. Her poetry collection, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties, won the 2019 Word Masala Award. She is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani – a writers’ collective of British South Asian writers. Find out more at her website: www.reshmaruia.com
Taking Up Space panelist
Crawley: Sunday 30 March
Eve Ainsworth
Eve Ainsworth is a working class award-winning children and teen’s author, public speaker, workshop co-ordinator and mentor for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Her debut novel for adults, Duckling, was published by Penguin Random House in Spring 2022 and was followed by Somebody I Used to Love published by Canelo in 2023. Finding Her Feet was a featured Blue Peter Book Club book. Eve was born and raised in Crawley, one of seven children. She previously worked in HR, before landing a job she loved – safeguarding students. This inspired her first teen book 7 Days. Eve is fiercely proud of her working class roots and her large, loud family. She lives in Crawley with her husband, two teenage children and crazy pets.
Panelist: Resilience and Perseverance
Debi Alper
Debi Alper is an author, freelance editor and creative writing tutor. Her first two novels were published by Orion and she later on her own imprint, along with the next three in the Nirvana series. Since 2006, Debi has been helping other writers to perfect their novels through critiques, mentoring, Book Doctor sessions and creative writing workshops. She runs the phenomenally successful Jericho Writers’ Self-Edit Your Novel course, acts as a competition judge and was a reader for the Costa Short Story Awards.
Chair: Resilience and Perseverance
Uju Asika
Uju Asika is a multi-award nominated blogger, author, speaker and creative writing mentor. She is the author of 3 books including her acclaimed debut, Bringing Up Race, hailed as ‘timely and important’ (Evening Standard Best Books 2020). A former journalist, Uju has also been a screenwriter for some of Nigeria’s spiciest TV dramas. Her work has featured on BBC London, Woman’s Hour, Good Morning Sunday, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire and The Observer. In 2024, she was a judge for the Wainwright Children’s Literary Prize. Uju lives in north London with her family and enjoys bingeing Netflix dramas, practising tsundoku, and kitchen dancing. Follow Uju @babesabouttown or visit her author website: ujuasika.com
Panelist: How to Get Your Work Noticed
Alinah Azadeh
Alinah Azadeh is a writer, artist, performer and cultural activist of British Iranian heritage. She writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, radio and podcast. Alinah has worked to foster and amplify the voices of women and marginalised communities for decades, including for WOW Festival and National Portrait Gallery. As inaugural writer-in-residence for the South Downs National Park, she devised a programme which led to We Hear You Now, an audio walk of new literature by 10 older women writers of global majority heritage. Alinah is working on a novella, memoir and writing commission for Towner Gallery’s 100th Anniversary. She is coach on Clore Leadership’s Inclusive Cultures programme, Writing Our Legacy/Changing Chalk Associate Artist for The National Trust, and publishes on Substack. See www.alinahazadeh.com
Facilitator: Menopause Journey
Kit de Waal
Multi-award winning author, Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an award-winning international bestseller. In 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC, and is on the GCSE curriculum. She founded TV production company, Portopia Productions, a free literary festival the Big Book Weekend, and champions The Bridgeport Award: never too late, a literary award for writers over 60. Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor and Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence at Leicester University. Her new novel The Best of Everything will be released in April 2025
Keynote Speaker and How to Get Your Work Noticed panelist
Read what Kit has to say about her experiences as a writer.
Abi Fellows
Abi Fellows is a literary agent with over 20 years’ experience in the publishing industry, having started in bookselling at Blackwell’s in 2001. After a stint on the sales team of Faber and Faber, Abi began her agenting career with Georgina Capel Associates, spent several years as a literary scout at RR Ltd and returned to agenting at The Good Literary Agency, building a list focused on amplifying and championing writers from traditionally marginalised backgrounds. In 2023, Abi joined DHH Literary Agency. Abi also has experience as a school governor in schools literacy programmes and their work with children who have special educational needs and are disabled. She is currently a Trustee for New Writing South.
Chair: How to Get Your Work Noticed
Parveen Khan
Parveen Khan, is a poet and community champion. She has facilitated spoken word and poetry workshops for Mother Tongue and Crawley Mothers Circle. She believes that everyone has a creative side and a story to share. Parveen says “We should not be afraid to explore, and write in non-traditional methods, in order to express ourselves.” She has two young children and lives in Crawley.
Facilitator: Poetry Workshop
Dorothy Koomson
Dorothy Koomson is an award-winning, global bestselling author of 22 novels. Her thrillers have connected with readers all over the world, with sales of over 2.5 million copies in the UK alone. Dorothy featured on the 2021 Powerlist as one of the most influential Black people in Britain, appeared in GQ Style as a Black British trailblazer, and was a judge for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her latest novel, Give Him To Me will be published on 13th February 2025.
Panelist: Resilience and Perseverance
Kate Lee
Kate Lee is a bestselling Sussex-based children’s author. As a mentor and editor, Kate helps writers develop their ideas, from picture book texts through to completed Middle Grade manuscripts for children aged 8-12, and everything in between.
Facilitator: Writing for Children
Akila M Richards
Akila M Richards is an award-winning fiction writer, poet and spoken word artist. Her recent poetry pamphlet ‘Ritual For A Mango’ was launched in February 2024 at Goldsmith University. Her work led to collaborations in Liberia, The Gambia, St Lucia, Berlin and UK. A year long residency at Brighton Dome led to the development of The Rest Experience. Akila’s portfolio includes coaching and mentoring as well as facilitating creative projects. She currently writes a novel. https://akilarichards.wordpress.com/
Facilitator: The Rest Experience
Umi Sinha
Umi Sinha first novel Belonging (Myriad 2015), set in India and Sussex in the colonial period, was published in the UK, Poland, Portugal and India, and shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the Waverton Good Read Award. Her second novel, The Fallen, set in WWII Italy, is with agents Pearlman & Lacey. Umi taught creative writing at Sussex and Brighton Universities and at New Writing South. She ran an oral storytelling club, The GuestHouse Storytellers, for 16 years. She runs Writing Clinic, a mentoring service for writers. She is a profiled writer on Writers Mosaic, set up by the Royal Literary Fund, and is currently a volunteer mentor for writers in Gaza through wearenotnumbers.org.
Panelist: Resilience and Perseverance
Nicola Williams
Nicola Williams started her career as a barrister in private practice, specialising in Criminal Law. She was a member of the first Independent Advisory Group to the Metropolitan Police Service and has been a part-time Crown Court Judge since 2010. She is the author of three legal thrillers. Without Prejudice was selected for the Black Britain: Writing Back series by Bernardine Evaristo and Until Proven Innocent was the winner of the Diverse Book Awards Readers Choice Award 2024. Her latest novel, Killer Instinct will be published July 2025.
Panelist: How to Get Your Work Noticed
